JUPITER, Fla. — A Jupiter man who pleaded guilty to murdering his estranged wife last year was sentenced to more than three decades behind bars on Thursday.
David Anthony, 44, will serve a 38-year prison sentence, with credit for 295 days of time already served, after confessing in December to killing Gretchen Anthony.
"I disgraced my family and brought shame upon my name," David Anthony tearfully told Judge Kirk Volker in court on Thursday. "There is no excuse for what I have done."
Authorities said David Anthony pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and kidnapping and revealed the location of his wife's remains.
Investigators said, at this point, they don't know how Gretchen Anthony was killed.
David Anthony said in court Thursday his wife was someone who "brought light into this dark world."
"Instead of being a man, I tried to be a coward," David Anthony said. "I can't get her life back. I can't fix this."
"What happened to Gretchen is truly horrific and left us with the deepest sadness," said Sarah Carey, Gretchen Anthony's sister, during the sentencing.
David Anthony was arrested in New Mexico last year and charged with murder and kidnapping after his wife was last seen on March 20, police said.
According to detectives, one neighbor told them that on March 21 between 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., "she heard a woman's voice let out a blood curdling scream" and she heard a woman yelling, "No! No it hurts!"
At least five people received "suspicious" text messages that were allegedly from Gretchen Anthony on March 23 and 24, saying she was infected with an "acute case" of COVID-19.
"You are pure evil. You stole a mother away from her child. A daughter away from her mother," Carey told David Anthony in court. "You are a monster. You are a coward."
